The Internet is a convenient medium by which consumers can have immediate access to complete product and service information along with the ability to purchase those products and services. In the past, to provide e-commerce capabilities, many dealers created virtual stores on their own dealer server systems. Consequently, extensive upgrades and complete infrastructure overhauls to their back-end systems were often necessary. In addition, it was very difficult for particular consumers to locate the nearest and most cost-effective dealer. Moreover, because many consumers relate to a particular brand or manufacturer of a product, rather than the name of a specific dealer, some consumers are unable to locate dealers on the Internet selling the desired product, not to mention the nearest or most cost-effective dealer.
Furthermore, some manufacturers solely created and completely operated virtual stores for dealers thereby creating a necessity to separately synchronize the manufacturer's virtual store data with each corresponding dealer. Here, again, many back-end system upgrades and overhauls are required by the manufacturer and dealer. The costs associated with these upgrades and overhauls exponentially increase with each additional dealer the manufacturer connects to its virtual store due to continuous data synchronization requirements as well as maintenance of all manufacturer and dealer back-end systems. Moreover, real-time data regarding a particular dealer may be non-existent, unavailable, or inoperative with this configuration due to synchronizing delays with each dealer.
Consequently, past back-end configurations fail to provide immediate, low-cost, and secure access to virtual stores and electronic commerce systems without complete infrastructure overhauls. Some companies simply cannot afford to go back to the drawing board and completely revise the architecture of critical systems because they greatly depend upon existing infrastructure. What is needed, then, is a method and system for a virtual store which is accessible from a manufacturer's website that defines a configuration and structure allowing use of existing system infrastructure of a dealer while providing real-time dealer specific information (pricing, availability, descriptions) to the consumer without interfacing the consumer directly with the older infrastructure and systems.
Additionally, a front-end presentation of a systemization of machine parts so that consumers may properly and quickly select among various machine parts is absent in the industry. Currently, machine parts are sold in person or over the phone with the aid of considerable cataloging documents requiring significant resources and time. In instances where part numbers or components are unknown, the mere determination of the necessary machine parts may take even longer. This may be much more time than a consumer is willing to spend if he either only needs an individual machine part or group of machine parts. It would be helpful to have a means for consumers to select specific groups or individual parts of machine parts for purchase, or to assemble only the required individual parts within a group of machine parts, without the aid of another human being or physical document. In addition, the number of different kinds of machine parts for a single machine often makes it confusing for consumers to know which specific parts best meet their needs. Consequently, a front-end systemization of machine parts which allow consumers to properly and quickly select among various machine parts having different individual parts, groups, components, and systems is necessary.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.